All about nails

Guinea pig nails grow and need to be trimmed from time to time to stop them becoming curly and awkward.

Guinea pig nails are very similar to our own. They have an area of the nail that has a blood supply and if you cut into this area it is painful for the guinea pig and will bleed a lot.

The area that you need to trim is the area without the blood supply. However, unlike us, sometimes the area that has the blood supply is difficult to see as some guinea pigs have dark or black coloured nails.

There is a very simply trick to making this easy and you will never hurt your piggie if you follow this method:

Guinea pigs have 4 digits on the front paws and 3 digits on the rear paws. Each of these have nails that need to be trimmed. On ocassion there is an additional growth from the sides of the front paws which is made of the same nail tissue and is treated in the same manner as a nail. Usually they are dark brown in colour. There is no blood supply to this growth – only right at the base. Usually these ‘false’nails just curl into the paw and are easily groomed back as you would a nail.